The Jump City Chronicles
by Starved of Song
Summary: There are huge distinctions between problems that you have to solve for yourself, the problems that you take to the police, and the problems that are handled by the Teen Titans. Rose, Will and Mike are all trying to get by as Citizens of Jump City. Between their one-sided romances, unemployment and harsh realities, the three of them try their best to make stories of their own.
1. Chapter 1

In Jump City, there are problems.

Constant, continuous problems.

Mostly, they're pretty life-threatening, but there are some that people deal with on a daily basis. Muggings, thieves, jaywalkers. The usual stuff.

However...

There are huge distinctions between problems that you have to solve for yourself, the problems that you take to the police, and the problems that are handled by the Teen Titans.

* * *

Rose liked to go to the bookstore on Sundays. She was studying at the local university to be a teacher, and therefore had a lot of interest in not only books, but the children that she would read to. Every Sunday she would wake early, go for a run, fix herself a quick, healthy breakfast and then pack a small knapsack to take on the road with her. The knapsack included a journal, her favorite pen, vegetables and hummus, a bike lock, wallet and cell phone.

Rose had a routine. A lovely, constant routine as constant as the disasters that tended to waft through her city as if it were just another Sunday.

She hopped on her bike and let it coast downhill on a busy road. Rose's red hair billowed out behind her in the breeze. She waved happily at the flower shop owner who was misting her lillies outside. She barely glanced at the coffee shop where her ex boyfriend worked as a barista, hoping he wouldn't see her, even though he probably did. He knew her routine, after all. Rose laughed at the pomeranian who yipped at her as she flew by, like he did every Sunday morning, and eventually she made it to the bottom of the hill.

Perfectly placed at the bottom was the bookstore. It was nestled on a street corner near the park, so the air around it was rich with the smell of trees and flowers. It was summer, and the perfect season for an education student on summer break to volunteer to read to children.

"Rose!" An older gentleman greeted her kindly. "You're here early."

She nodded. "The wind was pushing me down the hill today."

"Yes, it's a little chilly out here."

She frowned. "It's seventy degrees, Nate."

"Well," He chuckled. "I'm old. Even this weather is too cold for me these days."

Rose hopped off of her bike and gently chained it to the old fashioned posts outside the bookstore. It was a good thing she wore soft shorts underneath her sun dress.

"If it's so unbearable, why don't you move?"

The old bookstore owner smiled wistfully. Nate was pale with a full head of white hair who usually wore tweed jackets and carried around a black umbrella no matter what the weather called for.

"No, I couldn't leave this city. Too many fond memories."

Rose tried not to laugh. "Fond memories? Like the time a tidal wave almost took out the city? Or the time that three buildings blew up in one afternoon?"

Nate merely chuckled again. "You're new. You'll understand someday."

He led her inside, the bell tinkled gently in the rising light and he started some coffee. It was barely ten in the morning.

She thanked him and set her knapsack in the back room where Nate kept an old sofa, space heater and a rusty brown cat named Quill.

Rose was 'new', people liked to say. She'd moved here for graduate school and had completed her first year. So, this was her first summer as a citizen of Jump City. In the colder months she'd endured plenty of scares. Buildings _had_ exploded. Tidal waves _almost_ took out the coast. There was one time when there were reports of stores whose items had gone haywire or auto dealerships whose cars went missing. Sure, things would usually be fixed/replaced and people would go on with their lives, but the giant "T" that loomed on the horizon, the one she could see from her bedroom window, was almost ominous for someone who was… 'new'.

Quill hopped up into her lap and purred, but she gently set him next to her on the couch.

"I can't stay back here, I have to go read to the kids." She cooed at the animal. He bristled when he heard the first screams of small children echoing through the small building.

"I know, but don't worry." She scratched under his bell collar and kissed him on the head. "They can't get you back here."

She left Quill to lay out in front of the space heater and entered the loud 'reading room' in the back of the store.

* * *

Rose had probably read "The Cat in the Hat" over thirteen times in the last three Sundays, and was honestly so tired of it she thought she would burst. Her reading room demographic was very, very young, and therefore her reading list was pretty short. Just once she'd like to discuss Harry Potter with a bunch of middle schoolers, or Pride and Prejudice with some high schoolers. Except, for some reason, those age groups never wanted to be read to anymore.

So, there she was, helping Nate close up the shop around 5pm and stowing her journal back into her bag. She wrote in it every time there was a lull in reading duties, or if the shop was running pretty slow. She wrote about her life, the people she met, the books she wanted to read or stories she was writing herself.

Except, right now, all that was running through her mind was "The Cat in the Hat".

"Nate," She rubbed her eyes wearily. "Give me literally anything else to think about."

He chuckled, the way that he always did, and patted her on the shoulder. "Sorry, dear. I can't think of anything. I'm running late as it is, though, so you'll have to scoot."

He pulled out the shop keys and scurried out the door, gesturing that she should follow.

"Late? For what?"

He grinned. "Story night, at the pub down the road."

"Story night?"

He nodded. "Its new, like yourself."

She rolled her eyes. Rose was tired of being called 'new'.

"At Mulligan's on Sunday and Friday nights, folks have started a group called 'Story Night'. It's where we discuss all the things that go on in our city. Keeps people more up to date than the news."

She watched as Nate locked up the shop.

"What kind of stories? True stories?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes. Sometimes folks talk about the things in their neighborhood that have been destroyed, cats saved, sightings of the Teen Titans and the like."

"Sightings?" Rose laughed. "I thought that they were such a common occurrence around here."

"Not as much as you'd think." He rebutted. Nate shouldered his umbrella, the one he never went without, and started walking down the road.

Curious, Rose grabbed her bike and followed him.

"Well, wait, have you ever told a story?"

He paused on the road and thought for a moment.

"No, but if you're coming, maybe I will tonight."

Curious about what stories old Nate may have from living in Jump City his whole life, Rose couldn't help but to push her bike a little faster to keep up with him.

When they arrived at Mulligan's, Rose was shocked to see a guy from her graduate program there. She remembered his name was something like Michael or Mike and that he'd lived around here since childhood. Just like Nate.

Nate, by the way, was leading her over to a table and people began to quiet down. For a moment she was wondering why they were staring at her, but then realized they were waiting for Nate to start speaking.

"I thought you said that 'people' had started a group?" She hissed under her breath as folks filtered in and sat down with their beers.

"I'm old, but I'm still 'people'." Nate smiled over his mulled mead. "Alright, everybody, come on and sit down. I want you to meet Rose!"

She blushed in the dim, pub lighting and accepted a glass of white wine graciously. It was given to her by a woman who seemed to own the place because she refused Rose's money.

"Hey, I'm Babs." The older woman winked at her. "Welcome to Mulligan's. Never seen you before."

Rose nodded and sipped her wine. "I'm newly twenty-two and not really a drinker." She confessed. After a year of trying it, she still didn't like the taste, but the wine wasn't bad.

The other members of the "Story Night Club" greeted her as well, but Mike or Michael just nodded at her as if to say "hey, I know you already". She smiled at him and settled in next to Nate, who seemed to be the ringleader of this outfit.

"Alright, alright now." He smiled at them all, pointing his umbrella for emphasis. "Who's going to start? The weekends are always busy with weird stuff, so what's happened since Friday?"

A middle-aged police officer stood up and went to sit on a strategically placed barstool that faced all of them. He introduced himself as Ted and tipped his hat at Rose, the newbie.

"I got a story for you all." He began, ominously. "It happened yesterday morning…"

Someone sipped their beer loudly in the silence that followed.

"So, me and my partner Jim were in the cruiser, driving around looking for wandering drunks from Friday night. We turned the corner on Wayne Ave and saw some people running the opposite direction. Of course, we didn't know what to think. Then, this massive purple and green monster comes barreling out past the bank-"

"-and eats the back end of a parked bus!" Cried another member of the Story Night Club. He looked like he was around Rose's age, barely old enough to drink and wearing the local community college's symbol on his hoodie. "I saw that, too!"

The cop smirked. "Yeah, well guess what happened next?"

They all smiled and waited.

"Well," Ted continued, "Jake's right, the bus was half eaten. Good thing that everyone evacuated beforehand. Must've seen the big nasty thing coming and headed for cover. Anyway, so the bus is being eaten by this thing and then what do I see?"

They all waited.

"Flashes of green lights. Shooting from all over the sky!"

The patrons of the bar started to smile knowingly. Rose tilted her head and waited.

'Suddenly, from the sky, zoomed in Starfire!" The chief exclaimed as if it he'd seen his favorite celebrity. "She swooped in and pounded the sucker! Starbolt, eye lazer, boom, FLASH!" Ted waved his arms for emphasis. "It was amazing!"

Nate laughed. "Don't let your wife hear you speaking like that!"

"Nah," Ted _pshhed_ him. "Dirty old man, she's way younger than me."

"I don't know," Jake the community college student commented. "Does it count in Alien Years?"

No one had any idea, but Ted still shook his head vehemently to show that his amazement was completely innocent all the same.

"Still, it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I mean, I've seen Beast Boy before, but she was something else. Eventually, the monster exploded and she carted this sleeping guy who'd been inside it away." He picked up his beer and cheers'd the patrons of the bar. "The End."

* * *

The rest of the stories of the night went like that. They'd talked about missing cars that appeared overnight in driveways, trash that was mysteriously eaten before the garbage truck came and electric currents that zapped out a whole street's power. Regardless of what he'd said though, Nate didn't share that evening, the rest of the bar was pressuring him to talk, but instead he smirked at them all and called it a night.

Rose and the others left the bar around ten in the evening. Shivering in the cooler summer night's air, Rose dreaded the idea of walking her bike all the way up the hill in her sundress. She should've thought of that earlier, but now it was too late. She bent down to unlock the bike.

"Hey," Said a soft voice from behind her. "Need a walking buddy?"

Rose turned her head to see Mike or Michael watching her, hesitating outside the bar. He shifted shyly on his feet.

"Huh?" She shivered. She finally got the lock undone and straightened to face him.

"It's, uh…" He looked around at the quiet side street that they were on. Only a few people were walking through the park "You know, it's kind of… unsafe."

"For a girl alone, you mean?" She asked, a small smile on her face.

"Heh, yeah…" He was worried he'd offended her, but she was touched.

"Yeah, sure thanks. Michael, right?"  
His face lit up a little. "Mike, yeah."

Rose blushed a little, but it was hard to see in the darkness. "Okay, yeah. Thanks-uh, again."

The two of them walked away from the pub and up the hill together. Her bike clicked gently in the night.

* * *

 **Hey guys, I hope you liked the intro to this new story idea I had! I wondered what it would be like to experience the lives of those who live in Jump City, rather than just the superheroes. I'll be following the stories of a few different, interconnected characters to see where they take me! I hope you'll enjoy them as well.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for tuning in again for this pet project of mine! Since it's more of a little side-thing I've got going on with my last year of university, I thought I'd warn you guys that updates will not be scheduled (though they will be frequent). I'm really excited about what I've got going on and I'm glad you're here to share it with me!**

 **I realized you guys don't know much about me, but in case you cared, here's a little about my life right now.**

 **I hit a deer with my car on Friday the 13th in October (of course), subsequently destroying my car. On the bright side, and a few weeks later, I'm getting a new one along with another loan to pay off, but things are looking up! I'm dealing with the chilly old house my college roommates and I are currently renting**

 **In other news, I saw that I have a viewer from New Zealand, so I'd like to say hey! I spent 6 weeks in Auckland in 2016, and I just wanted to say you've got a beautiful country and I miss it deeply.**

 **One final note, thank you** _thoughts-of-joy-dreams-of-love_ **for reviewing! It means a lot to get feedback!**

* * *

Will sloshed through the puddles that flooded the sidewalks. It was pouring this morning; cold, too. The sun was barely streaming through dark clouds, but it was only seven. Summer or not, Jump City was chilly this Tuesday morning.

Turning the corner and down an alleyway, Will hastened his pace. If he was going to get to work on time he'd better hurry. The night had been long, visiting his little sister in the hospital, and waking up this morning had been too exhausting to imagine. Now he was going to be twenty minutes late and probably lose his job.

At the worst possible moment, Will tripped over his own black work shoes and found himself elbow deep into a pothole completely filled with water. He spit out the metallic, city taste of the concrete that seemed to be lodged in his teeth and hissed in pain. He'd smacked his nose on the edge of the pothole and it was bleeding. Maybe it wasn't the city he was tasting but his own, bloody life.

He swore and hissed again, pinching his nose. Will stumbled up out of the water and mud and kept going. Now he'd really be late.

He could see the hole-in-the-wall diner just ahead of him on the other side of this alleyway and across a busy street. Cars were racing back and forth in front of it. He was a line cook, especially well-versed in fried foods and eggs in baskets. He was weighed down by the world, by the rain that seemed to be beating heavily upon him from all sides. He burst out of the alleyway, barely seeing anything. Blood and rain filled his mouth and nose.

"Hey, man - you okay?" Came a voice from next to him.

Will's eyes pinched against the elements and he stumbled into the busy street.

* * *

Mike was still reeling from the night before. The girl he'd seen a few rows away in his graduate class had talked to him. He was floored when she'd turned around in her yellow sundress that night. It looked so pretty with her red hair. She'd let her walk him home. He'd been an idiot, he knew, the whole time, but she'd laughed at his jokes anyway. How perfect.

The entire walk back to her small apartment up the hill had been chilly without his coat. He'd given it to her. She was positively turning blue in that yellow sundress. Finally, when they'd made it to her place he'd dipped his head in goodnight and left. It was only after he'd gone a few blocks that he realized that he'd forgotten to get his coat back.

And he forgot to get her number.

Mike thought all about this as he waltzed up 56th. Rain pounded against his umbrella. His thoughts were interrupted by something he didn't expect. He did not expect that, as he was passing an old video game store, someone would burst out of the alley, covered in blood.

"Hey, man - you okay?"

The stranger didn't seem to hear him and kept going. Mike was shocked and reacted only a second too late when the bloody figure stumbled forward, directly into the path of a huge bus.

"Hey, hey-HEY!" He shouted after him and leapt forward to grab the stranger's hand. Mike's foot tripped on the curb and now he too was stumbling forward, pushing the stranger further into traffic.

In seconds they had both been safe and were now about to be killed by a bus that was roaring on its horn. Someone near them screamed.

Suddenly, the pair of them were grasped by the arms and pulled off the street in one lightning-fast movement. Mike heard the bloody stranger cry out in surprise and then the two of them were thrown to the sidewalk, safe.

"Seriously." Hissed an irritated voice. The two of them glanced up in shock to see a hooded young woman with an angry expression staring down at them. She looked wet, disappointed and bored like a mother trying to take care of unruly children.

"Watch where you're going next time." She muttered in finality and flew away, her cloak billowing in the rain.

The two men stared at one another, one surprised and one bloody, and then burst out laughing. They'd almost died. They were going to die. It was only because Raven, one of the famous Teen Titans, had saved them that they were not.

The rain was still pouring down and the two were still sitting there, laughing in shock and relief. Concerned passersby were staring down at them, yet, as it was in big cities, no one offered to help. Finally, Mike pulled himself to his feet, sopping wet. He found his umbrella handle caught on a sewer grate and pulled it free. He opened it up, turned and offered a hand to the bleeding stranger on the sidewalk.

"Need a lift?" Mike joked and helped the other man to his feet.

The stranger cradled his face but shook hands with Mike anyway.

"My name's Will." He spit out rainwater and blood and then joined Mike under his umbrella.

"Mike. Nice to meet you. What were you doing, bloody and stumbling out of the alleyway?"

"I was…" Will glanced soberly at his place of work and then decided that maybe he should take the day off. "Eh, it doesn't matter now. I think I'll just do nothing today."

"Come with me, then." Mike offered, still smiling. "We have to tell Nate about this."

"Uh, who?"

* * *

Will's heart beat wildly as he followed Mike to an old bookstore by the park. He couldn't stop thinking how, had it been another second, he'd be dead. Raven, though a dark demoness who'd once almost destroyed the city, was an angel to him now. He couldn't remember feeling this lucky in his whole life. He was practically skipping in the rain beneath Mike's umbrella.

Forget about his job. He'd get another one. He'd graduated with honors at one of the top four-year universities in Jump City and what had he done with his degree? Put up stock in a shitty old diner that didn't care if he lived or died. His desperate need to become a real, five-star chef (coupled with his sister's medical bills and a crippling fear of failure) had landed him in a dead-end job he neither liked nor respected.

No. that was the end of that.

He'd reapply his talents elsewhere, and yeah, maybe he wouldn't be able to see Rebecca as much as he did now, but she'd understand. He'd work hard, he'd pay off her bills, she would get better.

Things were really looking up right now.

"We're here!" Mike exclaimed finally when they came to the old bookshop. It looked warm and inviting, but most importantly, dry.

"Uh, Mike? It says that it doesn't open until ten. It's only eight right now."

Mike smiled and shook his head. "Don't worry." Then he knocked enthusiastically on the glass and wood door.

An inscription read: "Ol' Corner Books - Open 10am-5pm Every Day"

It took a little bit and another enthusiastic knock later, but an older gentleman holding a rusty cat finally answered the door.

"Michael?" The old man questioned, shifting the cat higher in his arms. "What's wrong, what happened to him?"

Will remembered that he must look like an almost 'dead man' and grinned sheepishly,

"Sorry, I'm Will. I got a little banged up on my way to work."

"You were going to work?" Mike asked. "You're gonna be late."

"I'm quitting." Will answered matter of factly.

Nate watched the two speak and shook his head in exasperation. "Oh, come in, it's pouring. Wait here I'll get something for that nose."

Will and Mike shivered on the hardwood floors, dripping. Will couldn't believe he'd never found this place before. It was so cozy, so simple. From the entrance rug he could see shelves upon shelves of books leading away into the back and an old fashioned cash register that looked like a typewriter. He smelled coffee brewing in another room, and warm lamps lightened up the dark morning. The rain battered against the huge storefront window and the cat mewed.

"Here," Nate returned from the other room and smiled at Will, handing him an icepack and a roll of paper towels. "You'll need it."

"Thanks," Will smiled through the pain.

Mike shifted a little on his feet, not sure what to do.

Nate lead them both to the back room with the heater and made them sit on the floor. "You'll get the couch wet."

They accepted cups of black coffee and thanked him. The rusty cat sniffed Mike and mewed at him.

"So," Nate finally began. "What happened?"

After telling and retelling the story, Nate leaned back on the couch and crossed his arms. "You two need to share on Friday."

Mike brightened up. "That's what I was thinking!"

"Wait, what?" Will screwed up his face in confusion and winced from his bloody nose.

Mike turned to his new acquaintance. "Nate has a story club."

"A story club?"

Nate remembered the same expression on Rose's face that was now appearing on Will's.

"Yeah," Mike offered. "It's pretty cool. You meet a lot of great people there."

"Like pretty girls?" Asked Nate, giving Mike a pointed look. Mike blushed, his blue eyes shining beneath his mop of damp brown hair.

Will looked even more confused. "What?"

"Nothing," Mike shot back at Nate who seemed like he was about to open his mouth to reply. "No, he just means that there are nice people there. We just talk about things that happen here in the city. Sometimes about our lives. You know, talk it all out over a beer."

Will nodded. "Sounds nice."

"Well, you're welcome to join us. You're twenty-one right?" Nate asked.

"Oh, yeah. I turned twenty-three this May." Will responded.

Nate nodded. "Perfect."

* * *

After "Ol' Corner Books" opened at ten, Nate had to shoo the two men out the door. He simply couldn't keep chatting with them, even though he wanted to, because a local author was signing their debut novel today. He was barely ready for it, but decided that he wasn't so old that he couldn't whip up some good coffees and call out for catering before noon. He nudged Quill off of his boots and set to work.

Tuesday ticked by slowly for Nate, then Wednesday.

Then Thursday was eventful, when another summer storm blew in and a rock flew into the front window, severely cracking it. He'd been sitting at the counter waiting for the horribly slow day to end and he could finally close. Rose had stopped in on her day off from her summer job as a daycare worker. She had been the only customer the entire day. When four in the afternoon blissfully rolled around, Nate was getting ready to call it an early day when a large rock smacked against the window. Rose had gasped, jumped up from her armchair by the window and backed away.  
"Whoa!" Her hand flew to her mouth in surprise.  
Nate stepped in, "Don't worry, don't worry. That's the dangers of owning a place like this. Old setting, old windows." As if on cue, lightning and thunder crackled in the afternoon air.

"Yeah, dangerous…" Rose shivered. She reached out and tapped the place where the rock would have hit her in the skull if there hadn't been a window there. "What's with this strange storm anyway?"

Nate shrugged. "Drama?"

"Drama?"

He chuckled. "Nothing, nothing. Let's call it a day, yeah? Will you be at the pub tomorrow night?"

Rose grabbed her things from the back room, pet the cat and then reappeared before answering.

"I think so. But...I thought about working on some more lesson plans for my advisor…"

"No, no. It's summer, take a break." He chided. "Besides, there's a new member that you should meet! Great story, too."

"Really?" She smirked and raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Nope. Must come tomorrow." Nate said with finality and shooed her out the door.

Rain and wind whipped at them both, so they went back in to call Rose a cab instead.

"Alright, thank you." Rose said into the phone, then hung up. "They'll be here soon."

Nate nodded, holding the sleepy cat in his arms. "Please come tomorrow."

"Fine!" Rose laughed. "But it better be good!"

"It will."


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys! Thanks for all the favorites and follows! Here's another quick chapter of the Jump City Chronicles!**

* * *

"So I'm walking along 42nd, right?"

Jake the community college student was flourishing his arms for dramatic effect on the "Story Stool" that faced them all.

It was Friday night, and that meant another round of Jump City tales.

Will shifted nervously in his seat. Before they'd started that night, Nate had pulled him aside to ask if he'd still be interested in sharing. When he'd first walked into the bar, after following the 'shared location' on his phone from Mike, he'd been impressed and a little confused as to why he'd never been here before. Mulligan's Pub had the classic Irish-theme. Shamrocks in the corners, whiskey specials, Guinness for cheaper than he'd ever seen, pub games and lots of stools and tables for chatting. Will dropped four quarters on a game of pool because Mike had texted that he was running late. He was barely done breaking when he felt someone clap a hand down on his shoulder.

"You came!" Nate, the kindly, white-haired bookstore owner had exclaimed upon seeing him.

"Heh, uh yeah." Will nodded. "Mike said he'd come after me if I didn't."

"Good kid, good man." Nate grinned. "He and I go way back, you see."

Will didn't see, but nodded anyway.

"So? You're sharing tonight, right? You and Mike?"

"Erm," Will hesitated. "Could Mike just do it?"

"I suppose he could," Nate frowned a little, but not unkindly. "But then we'd miss your side of the story."

"Right… uh, sure. Yes. I'll help him tell it." Will didn't believe what he was saying, but it was too late now.

Then the door opened and a bell tinkled. In walked Mike. Will's nervousness fell away a little bit to see him enter. He was just about to call after him when Mike walked back out again, laughing at something he couldn't see. Will frowned in confusion but Nate strode over to the door immediately.

"Rose! Get in here, it's still a little chilly out there. You've got a coat this time, dontcha?"

Will watched Nate and Mike file back into the pub. Then he saw who they were talking to. He dropped his head down to the pool table again and pretended like he was playing against himself.

"It's still not that cold, Nate." He heard a voice reply. "You're just old." Some people who must've known them laughed.

Will still pretended like he was playing pool. He missed his shot and the cue ball jumped off the table. His face flushed.

"Will!" Mike called after him. Will straightened up, mortified.

"Er, hey, man."

The redheaded girl, who was following closely behind Mike, suddenly smiled brightly.

"Oh, my gosh! It's you!" She rushed forward and held out her hand. He took it, surprised, and shook it gently.

She was just like he remembered.

"You two know each other?" Mike asked, confused, but still smiling.

Rose shook her head, then nodded. She laughed at her own mixed signals and Mike's ever-growing confusion.

"Well, sorta. Um, no, I mean-" She laughed again. "It was during Christmas time, while we were still taking classes."

Will nodded. "Yeah, it was that blizzard in December-"

"-and I'd dropped my wallet in the snow outside the diner he worked at-"

"-I was on my break-"

"-and he came right up and helped me dig it out of the snow! It almost fell in the sewer."

Will laughed a little. "Well, yeah. But anyway-"

"-so he pays for my meal and gets me some chicken-noodle soup because of course it's freezing outside-"

"-and all her cash is soaked through."

"Right, it was!" Rose laughed harder.

Mike had to stop himself from interrupting them, instead looking back and forth as the story progressed. Nate, who was behind him, began laughing as well.

"Oh no," Nate smiled. "You should've saved that one for tonight. It's always interesting to see how folks know each other in a big city like this."

"It was just… one of those things." Will finished lamely.

Rose still beamed at him. "I never got to thank you, you had to leave."

"Yeah, had to, uh, run." Will changed the subject and invited the three of them to some pool.

Nate refused but Mike and Rose accepted and the three of them carried on like that for about twenty minutes.

Eventually, Babs closed the pub for the evening and gestured for everyone to sit in their spots. Jake jumped up and plopped down on the stool facing everyone saying, "I'm going first and you can't stop me", but no one tried to.

"So I'm walking along 42nd right?" He began, waving his arms for dramatic effect, after everyone had settled. "It's a Wednesday afternoon and I'm coming up to an alleyway, when all of a sudden, this dumpster shoots out of it and straight into traffic!"

Someone gasped.

"I know! I know, so I'm freaking out and a couple cars slam on their brakes. I think that there did end up being a few accidents, but before I could register any of this, a masked girl dressed in a Kimono is scaling the building!"

"Whoa…" Rose whispered under her breath. She was sitting between Nate and Mike, with Will on Mike's left.

"I know!" Jake said again, gaining momentum. "She's halfway up the fire escape when BAM! An explosion catches her off-guard and she starts falling, ten feet I swear! So I'm below her and all I'm thinking is 'this chick is gonna fall right on me'."

Babs started laughing.

"But she doesn't, because from her hands come like, these Wolvering claws, and she's catching hold of the bricks!" Jake is breathing hard now with excitement. "I mean, like wow! So she's scaling the building again, makes it to the top, and dissappears out of sight. So I think, 'well I better check on these cars' because all I hear are horns and there's this smell of gunpowder in the air. I go to turn around, when another explosion goes off on the roof somewhere! People start running out of the apartment building as fast as can be, and now there's horns and cars and people all making a huge fuss. Well, finally the cops get there, Ted's probably still dealing with the damages, since he's not here."

Nate nodded as if he knew that already.

"The cops get there, everyone calms down, they clean up the dumpster and everything's just fine! Like nothing happend! Me, though, I'm late for my programming class that I'm taking this summer, and to _that_ old professor? _No_ excuse is a good excuse."

Jake finishes to laughter and a few claps.

"But you didn't see a Teen Titan?" Asked Babs, taking a swig from her pint.

"Nah, I must've missed em'." Jake sighed, sadly. He hops off of the bar stool and goes to take a drink of someone's beer when Babs stops him.

"Uh-uh. Coke for you." She handed him a glass of coca-cola and he took it begrudgingly.

"Fine." He smirked.

Nate got up and stretched. "Well, thank you Jake! Alright, alright, who's next?"

He looked pointedly and Mike and Will who were both now very nervous.

"Come'on boys, you've got a great one."

Nate pulled another stool up for the two of them and they sit down, facing everyone. Rose tilts her head adorably in anticipation, not knowing that the two of them had been planning to speak. She glanced at Nate who sat next to her and winked, as if to say 'this is the one I was telling you about'.

The two men look at one another, as if wondering who will speak first. Finally Will starts.

"Well, uh… So I'm in a hurry." He began lamely. Someone coughed.

"And I wasn't." Mike added. Rose smiles.

"Right, well I'm rushing off to work, this is Tuesday by the way, and it's pouring."

They both begin to describe in detail what had happened on that scary, yet exciting, Tuesday morning. Finally, they get to the good part.

Will pointed to his nose for emphasis. "So it's all just blinding pain, blinding rain, and I feel myself hit the street. Mike's knocked into me at this point, pushing us both further into traffic, when suddenly I feel my arm get nearly wrenched out of my socket."

"Right," Mike added. "So we're both being yanked from the path of this huge city bus that's about to squash us and hit the sidewalk hard."

"And I can barely see _anything_ but I hear this, like, disappointed voice!" Will keeps going, now smiling. "And I'm like, 'who the hell is disappointed in me right now?'."

"It's Raven!" Mike exclaimed.

Jake, from the back, yelled, "No freaking way! I'm SO jealous!"

Rose is holding her hands to her mouth in shock at the story so far. She couldn't believe that Mike, or even Will, had nearly died on Tuesday.

"Right, well it _is_ Raven, and she's like: 'seriously? Watch where you're going' like its nothing to her. Then she leaves us there and flies off!" Mike snapped his fingers. "Just like that!"

"Then Mike helps me up and we go meet this old guy," Will looks at Nate. People laugh. "Who tells us we should tell our story to a bunch of drunk strangers."

Everyone laughed at that. Then started clapping.

Mike got off of his stool and bowed dramatically at the crowd. Will just scratched at his bruised nose and smiled.

* * *

"I can't believe you two almost died." Rose exclaimed later once the official time for tale-telling had broken up. They were sitting at a corner tall table that Babs had given them after reopening the pub.

Rose was learning that, technically, Mulligan's was open from 4pm-2am on weeknights, closed on Sundays and open until 3am on Saturdays. However, since Nate had started the club, she'd been unofficially closing from 6:00-7:00 and reopening at 7:10. Since she was so popular down here, the lost hour didn't really hurt sales.

Now it was about 7:30 and Nate had gone home, leaving Rose, Michael and Will to talk.

"Almost being the operative word here." Will commented.

"True, but still." Rose shuddered a little. "I thought that rock hitting Nate's window next to my head was scary. You guys almost got killed by a bus."

Mike casually but his hand on her arm. "We're fine I promise."

She smiled back at him. Will shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Patrons of the bar were now slowly coming in, making noise. The three of them quickly finished off their pints and wine, thanked Babs, paid, and left the pub behind.

Rose unlatched her bike from the post outside and stowed the lock in her pack.

"Need another walking buddy?" Mike asked.

She smiled. "Sure."

They'd just started walking when Rose turned. "Nice seeing you again, Will. See you on Sunday?"

He looked taken aback. "Um, sure yeah." Why did he keep answering without thinking it over first?

"Great!" He watched her flash another brilliant smile at him and felt his insides warm.

 _That's why_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey all!**

 **So I started a new job recently and over Christmas Break I was doing a lot of work. Long days, good pay. But I'm back now and really getting an idea of where this story is headed. I hope you're enjoying it, so please review if you've got anything to say! As always thanks for supporting my writing and sticking with me through long hiatuses. ^_^**

 **-Song**

* * *

Without thinking much about it, Will found himself crawling out of bed on Saturday morning and headed for the bookstore. He didn't know what lead him there, or what was moving his feet, but he couldn't stop himself. Half asleep he plodded through the city in old sneakers and wondered what to do with himself now that he had quit his job.

He'd never quit a job in his life. Now that the light of day was staring him in the face, he realized what a horrible decision it was. Penny was so sick… he didn't know how he would pay for any of the medical expenses without a job.

What about rent?

"You… need something, Will?"

Without realizing it, Will had made it to his destination, and was now looking directly at the bookstore owner, Nate. Nate was holding a set of keys and looked like he was just about to open up before Will had interrupted him.

"Oh, uh…" He hesitated outside the door. "I was just, I mean, I just wanted to go for a walk." A zombie-like walk, as it turned out.

"All the way here? Didn't you say you lived up on 34th?"

"Yeah."

Nate gave him an inquisitive look but shrugged. He wiggled the keys in his hand. "Better come in, then."

"Thank you."

They entered the shop together, which was dark and cool, taking them out of the warm morning air. The weather had finally cleared, and now Jump City was heating back up in the summer sun.

"Rose is usually the only one who shows up this early." Nate commented, heading toward the back room. Quill, the cat, rounded a bookshelf and mewed at Will.

"Is she coming, today?"

Nate didn't hear him.

Will knelt down to the rusty cat and scratched it behind the ears. It pulled away and sniffed Will's had before allowing him to pet it further. As the two of them got better acquainted, Nate began brewing coffee and turned on the lights.

"Did you say something?"

"Oh, um… the cat, does he always live here?"

"Yeah," Nate started the cashier system up. "Tried bringing him home with me once, but he doesn't like my place. So he sleeps here at night."

"That's sweet."

"He keeps me company," Nate smiled. "So."

"So?" Will obeyed when Nate motioned for him to sit by the cracked storefront window.

"So, what are you really doing here?"

Will didn't know what to say. He thought about the place where a rock had hit the window and cracked it, where Rose had once sat. He thought that maybe, if he concentrated hard enough, he'd be able to smell her in the air beyond the dust of the store.

"Will?"

 _Nothing_. Will thought. "I really did just want to walk."

"You quit your job, I remember." Nate said softly.

Will froze up a little. The coffee maker beeped.

Nate sighed and rose from his chair. Will could hear the old man's joints creak a little bit. "I know what it's like to be unemployed, Will."

 _I don't really want to talk about this now…_ In the reflection of the window, the young man with dark hair and green eyes staring back at Will felt completely unfamiliar.

"What do you think?"

Will's head snapped up. "Think about what?"

"About what I just said - about working here!" Nate offered Will a cup of coffee and looked both amused and impatient. "What d'you say?"

"Work? Here?"

"What's wrong with that?" Nate frowned.

Will took the mug and shook his head frantically. "No! No, I mean, I want to be a chef…"

"So?"

"What do you mean, _SO_?" Will was impatient now. "I want to cook, I want to run a kitchen someday."

"We've got a kitchen."

"You have a coffee maker, and there is no _we_."

Nate put his hands up for a 'time-out'.

"Look," The old man leaned forward in his old chair. "Until you get back on your feet, you'll need money. Work here while you find your passion."

"Why?"  
" _Why?_ " Nate scoffed. "Because I own my own business and I can give out jobs to whomever I please, boy."

The two of them stared one another down.

"Can I think about-"

"No." Nate smiled and extended a hand.

Will took it and shook it apprehensively.

* * *

Sunday morning was warm and wet. If they'd lived in the country, Rose was sure that cicadas would be chirping from tall grasses and cats would be lounging on front stoops. But Rose lived in Jump City, and when the day was particularly hot and wet, there was usually trouble not far behind.

She rode her bike warily down the hill. Rose remembered reading something about how during heat waves people would get murderous over the littlest of things. Today, she supposed that nearly running over that chihuahua again would be grounds for a killing.

When she finally made it to the bottom of the hill and bent down on the the brakes of her bike she breathed a sigh of relief. No one had cat-called her, threatened her or followed her under the delusion of summer sun. Then she felt and heard a loud snap beneath her and the brakes gave out.

"Oh, no no no!" Rose gasped. Her front wheel hit the curb at the bottom of the hill and then she was thrown sideways off of the bike.

"Hey!" called out a voice, but Rose had already smacked into the concrete as her bike flew into traffic and was hit by a taxi.

"Ah!" She cried out and hissed between her teeth. In summer atire, a blouse and shorts, Rose's soft arms and legs were torn up by the cement. She curled into a defensive fetal position and tried not to cry.

"Hey, hey! Rose!?" The voice came again.

Will rushed over to her but dared not touch her. He'd been sweeping outside the bookstore door when Rose had come racing by on her bike. The man in the taxi jumped out and started screaming angrily, but stopped once he realized that someone was hurt.

"Yo, she okay?" He called out tentatively.

"Rose?" Will called again. He knelt down and brushed hair from her face. Regardless of her efforts, Rose started crying.

The sight of her blood on the ground made Will's stomach turn and he felt his hands shake. "I'll grab help, do you need me to call 911?"

She shook her head, but neither of them knew if she meant "no" or if she meant "I don't know".

"NATE!" Will yelled back at the shop before getting up and running for help.

Rose was surprised at the commanding urgency of the tone, and the concern that it held. Unable to stop crying or bleeding onto the street, she simply laid there, helpless. Somewhere in her hip a loose stone was digging into her.

"I didn't mean anything about the bike." The taxi driver mumbled above her. "Sorry bout' that…"

A second later heavy footsteps were coming toward her.

"What the hell happened?" Nate's voice came from above. "Rose? You doin' okay? Of course not - Will, call someone!"

"No," Rose hissed. "No, I'll be okay, just-ah!" She hissed again when she tried to move. The open wound scraping on stone. "I just need help getting up, please."

"Don't just stand there!" Nate's voice hissed at Will, sounding angry but coming from a place of concern and fear.

Will hesitated briefly, knowing that to move an injured person was a terrible decision, especially if they'd broken anything or hurt their head, but she seemed all-there so he scooped her light frame up and carried her bleeding figure into the bookstore. He felt his stomach doing flip flops to feel the wet blood on his arms and he hated the pained and crying expression on her face.

Rose could feel both their hearts pounding between them.

The three of them left the taxi driver behind with the broken bike.

...

Will lay Rose gingerly on the couch in the back room by the heater and the cat. She whimpered and it made him cringe at the sound.

"Hey, seriously, do I need to call 911? The army? The Teen Titans?" He asked, half-joking. She smiled up at him and his stomach flip-flopped again.

"No," She breathed. "Can you...?"

"What?" He asked.

Nate came into the room. "Brought some rubbing alcohol, some gauze and stuff." The older man awkwardly hovered. "That enough?"

She nodded, "Mhm, thanks. It's just, there's gravel in my leg I think..."

"Oh," Will nodded. "Here, let me get it."

Will took the rubbing alcohol, the gauze and a small washcloth from Nate and gently rubbed at the dirt and rock and blood on the side of Rose's leg. She hissed but he persisted, knowing that it was better to get it cleaned quickly than make allowances for the pain. A nasty bruise was already forming on her shoulder and arm. Nate stood above them and critiqued his methods the whole time.

"Now, come on you need to get that spot, too." Nate snapped. "Look its filthy, you want her to get infected?"

Rose rolled her eyes as the two of them went to work on her. Now only a sore ache after the initial pain of road burn and rocks pressing into her, she was starting to come back to her senses. "Thank you."

"Of course." They both replied in unison.

Even Quill the cat seemed to be concerned about her because he crawled up on her chest and neck to nuzzle her face and smother her in rusty brown fur.

"Thanks, Quill." She 'pfft' some cat hair out of her mouth and smiled. Then she hissed again as Will started on her shoulder which was probably the most torn up part.

"Just had to land on your arm, didn't you?"

"Better than my head." She joked.

Nate didn't find it funny. "I'm getting you a helmet, little girl."

"Hey, the brakes gave out, that's not _my_ fault." She narrowed her eyes, but the grandfather-like bookstore owner only crossed his arms.

"Fine, but I won't wear it in this heat."

After the gauze and bandages were applied with a good layer of anti-bacterial cream, the two of the men left her to lay down for a while and returned to the front of the store. Rose lay there and stared at the space heater, which was thankfully turned off, as she absently scratched the ears of the concerned cat.

 _That was sweet of them,_ She thought. _Like...really sweet_.

She smiled to herself as Quill stretched languidly over her chest. It was nice, she figured, to have people in your life to care about you so much.

Rose was new to Jump City and the city never let her forget it. Everyone she met told her, "Oh, you're a newbie aren't you?" or "You're new, you'll get used to it". While she knew that they were trying to be nice, welcoming even, it still made her feel absolutely alone. She'd moved into her apartment alone. She ate alone every night. She walked the streets still sometimes having to consult maps, and she _never_ went out after dark unless someone like Mike were with her. Jump City was lonely.

Except for this day. Today she felt so not-alone that it made her heart swell with happiness. So happy that it didn't matter that she lay on that old couch feeling like half of her was throbbing and on fire at the same time. So happy that it didn't matter that she was going to miss reading that Sunday morning (she could even hear Nate making apologies on her behalf).

So incredibly happy that she lay back down on the couch and sighed contentedly.

"Today," she whispered to Quill. "Today is an okay day, I think."


	5. Chapter 5

**I know that this probably wasn't the story update you were hoping for, but I'm SO inspired by the warm weather lately to write the Jump City Chronicles. I know it's not my most... action-packed work of Fanfic, but I love the characters. I can't wait for another Titan to show there face in this - but for now, a continuation of where we left off:**

 **As always, thanks for Favs and Reviews! It means so much to me.**

 **-Song**

* * *

Summertime in Jump City had proved to not only bring with it heat waves and violence, but long stretches of deceitful monotony. Mike found himself without much to do each day. He tried to work in his father's auto shop down on the corner of 22nd and Applewood, Royce Auto, but more often than not customers were scarce. The inside of the building was like an iron oven. The air had gone out over the weekend, and now, being Monday, it was putting him on edge.

He was already upset that he'd missed story night at the bar yesterday, instead being berated by his father for visiting Irish Pubs on a sunday night, which was no one's business but Mike's - though he'd stayed home if only to end the conversation.

What had he missed last night?

He really had to get his own apartment.

The small, rickety fan next to him was weakly blowing hot air over his face, and the phone had not stopped ringing all day. The clock was nearing five, so close in fact that Mike looked shocked when the phone rang again.

Mike pulled himself away from the auto shop counter and answered the phone. An insurance agent was calling about a recent crash one of their customers had had, and he politely told the person that repairs had not been done yet.

"Not _done_?"

"No," Mike continued. "It's scheduled for a week from now."

The man huffed over the phone, audibly and then hung up. Mike couldn't help but let the heat get to him, and so he slammed the receiver back in its cradle and swore at the phone.

"Michael!" his father called from the door that led to the garage. His face was covered in a thick, auburn beard that shaped his face into a permanent visage of a scowling viking. This brows were thick over dark eyes and the ballcap emblazoned with the auto shop logo covered his bald head.

"Sorry, Dad."

"Not in the shop, show some professionalism."

Mike nodded and logged off the computer. The clock above him now showing five in the afternoon, and therefore the end of the work day.

"Don't do it again," his father said for good measure and then closed the door roughly to the garage. Mike took that to mean that his father would be staying late again to work on his own pet project of a run-down Chevy.

Rather than offer to help, Mike jangled the keys in his pocket and locked up the shop. He turned the Mom and Pop "Open" sign to "Closed", and then promptly left Royce Auto without even finishing his paperwork for the night.

Summer nightlife in Jump City was the only thing that made the heat worth it. Mike could smell the late afternoon baking of concrete filtering through the air. It stuck to the bottom of his tennis shoes and, rather than hop into his sweltering car, he elected to grab his mother's bike from the side of the shop and ride it down the hill, fresh wind in his face. She wouldn't mind, she was probably writing in the office above the shop, keeping to herself. Mike's mother, Nora Royce, was famous for her tawdry romance novels. Famous, in that she wrote them often and with quick successions of one another, but not so famous that money was rolling in in waves. Most were self-published and only a few had made it to the local bookstores as physical hard copies. Still, it kept her from having to work in the auto shop - or working at all for that matter, and it kept her close.

It was easy to say that Mike was different from his parents. He was lacking in the mechanical prowess of his father and definitely lacking in the creative workings of his mother, so he'd elected instead to teach kids. He figured that, even if he himself wasn't creating or making anything, he'd be able to encourage the next generation to work hard to follow their dreams.

Still, it had been hard to convince his father that enrolling in school and then teaching it for the rest of his life was the best path for him - in fact his father had adamantly declared that universities were a waste of time and money, and that Mike should go straight to a technical program that could teach him "real, concrete skills". Mike had almost gone, too, if only to end the fighting, but he couldn't. He loved learning and he loved being around other people who loved learning. Those first few years as a freshman and sophomore in college were hard, no one around him loved learning like he did. They were just… there. Instead he'd tried to join clubs and programs and after-school nonprofits like being a "big sibling" to a few kids here and there. Nothing really stuck though, not until graduate school, and by then he'd gotten so discouraged by his own dreams and path that he'd wondered if he'd wasted thousands of dollars like his father had warned him.

Until this past winter, when he'd met Rose. Well, he hadn't officially met her then. She just appeared one day - a new face in town transferring to the graduate program, dedicated to the idea of learning and teaching. That learning was sacred, and that molding young minds was something so precious, such a privilege, that her passionate essays and presentations in class revitalized him. Breathed life into him. Saved him from a future of mufflers and oil changes, of dirty fingernails and his father's gruff stare.

He'd desperately wanted to talk directly with her, but the most he was able to get out during classes and lectures were his many positive comments and questions when she presented. She'd smiled and thanked the class for feedback and would take her seat in front of him, as always, but he'd never told her just how much she and her dedication to becoming a teacher had meant to him. How much it had saved him.

Mike's shoes felt like small, hot prisons around his feet as he pedaled up the hill to 29th street before it dipped down again. He was heading to the bookstore. It was Monday afternoon, and he imagined Rose in a soft, cream colored sundress as she exited the store with Nate. It made his feet pedal faster, and he was just nearing the top of the hill when he caught a glimpse of the city splayed out before him, shining in the late afternoon sunlight.

Last Sunday, Mike had offered to walk Rose home without thinking. It had fallen straight out of his head and he was worried she wouldn't want to pick up the offer. But she had, and so he'd offered her his sweatshirt jacket and the two of them had climbed the steep hill to 29th street together. The gentle _click click click_ of her bike spokes comforted him as they walked in gentle silence for the first few streets. He'd stolen glimpses of her - her amber eyes, her long, curling red hair. She caught him, she'd said, "What are you looking at?" and her nose had scrunched up in embarrassment as she wiped at her face.

"Your - well, I mean you have nice hair," he said.

"Oh," she smiled. "Thank you, the kids at the bookstore think I'm Merida from the movie _Brave_."

"That must work to your advantage."

She'd laughed. "Oh, yes, though the Scottish brogue doesn't come naturally to me."

"Maybe you can tell them you're a descendant."

"Of a fictional character? It'll mess with their heads!"

He laughed at her expression. "True. Maybe not then."

She smiled back at him. "I don't remember you being this mischievous in class."

"Best foot forward, and all that, I guess. Gotta seem professional."  
"You always had great presentations."

He looked at her sincere amber eyes and turned away, blushing in the night. "Not as great as yours."

She scoffed good-naturedly. "No, don't say that! You always wore these fantastic ties and it made you stand out. I think there was a purple one once that I loved."

"You did?" His heart had fluttered a little and he blushed harder.  
The tone of his voice had made her second-guess her flattering of him and so she switched tactics, so as to not make him uncomfortable. "Er- yeah, um. Where do you live? I'm not taking you too far away, am I?"

He shook his head. "No, you're just before the 29th street hill, right?"

"Yes."

"I live past that, up near 34th, but not quite. My family has a house on a side-street. Harrowing road?"

Rose shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, I don't know that area well. I hardly head toward the water. I'm mostly either at my apartment, at school or down here at the bookstore."

Mike had nodded. The 29th street hill overlooked the city. If you went east, you headed down the hill to the parks and Nate's bookstore. If you went west, and the street numbers increased, you were headed to the coast and the beaches. From the 29th you could see both lush green parks and trees, but if you turned around, you could see the shining water and Titan's Tower.

"I like it there, lots of trees off the main strip."

She had smiled at that and pulled the jacket tighter with one hand while the other remained on the handle bars. "It sounds great, you'll have to show me sometime."

"I-I will. Yes, definitely."

"Good."

They walked a little further than that before Rose stopped and pointed at a brick building with iron bars on the door and a buzzer system. "This is me," she said.

"Oh, okay. Nice place."

"Thank you so much for walking me home," she said.

He grinned. "Of course, any time."

"See you at the thing?"  
Mike's heart had skipped a beat.

"Yes."

He couldn't help but feel forlorn at the idea of leaving her, but he watched her click her bike up the stairs slowly and then watched her shut the door firmly behind her with a smile and a wave.

Her little wave gave him butterflies and it was only as he kept climbing the hill and then crested over it, once a chilly wind went through him, that he realized he'd left his sweatshirt jacket with her.

* * *

The sweatshirt jacket was left somewhere on his bed, safely returned to him after that first night telling stories.. The spokes of his mother's bike clicked beneath him as he rode the hill down to the bookstore. She'd probably be nearly gone by now - there was no guarantee that she was even there, but he thought he should at least try. In his head, Mike imagined reaching the bookstore just in time to see her unlocking her bike, just in time to offer to walk her home, and for some reason he pictured her again in her yellow sundress and blushed to himself, the hot wind blowing in his face.

Nothing he did could clear his mind of Rose.

He didn't want anything to.

A smile broke out over his face when he saw a single bike leaning up against the side of the shop, firmly locked to the stand that was cemented there. He hopped off with flourish and quickly locked his own to the stand next to hers. The bikes looked good together.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and pushed his way into the small bookstore, still open even though it was past five, like always. Ol' Corner Books was only supposed to be open until five, but the old man tended to let stragglers haunt the place until he was fed up with them.

"Nate!" Mike called as he walked in and there she was to his left. Curled up in one of the arm chairs near the storefront window and he turned, as if he was surprised to see her and he grinned.

"Hey," she smiled at him.

He continued to grin back like an idiot until he saw bruises on her arm and scrapes on her leg.

"Whoa," was all he could get out before Nate appeared from nowhere.

"Got herself into trouble, of course," Nate 'tsked' at Rose who merely reached behind the armchair and lifted a light blue helmet up and over her head, as if to say that she had it.

"What...happened?"

Suddenly another set of footsteps came from behind Mike, between the bookshelves, and out stepped Will who said, "She flipped a curb on her bike and it got run over by a taxi."

And then Mike remembered that Rose's bike was yellow, and the one outside was blue and black.

"That's crazy are you okay?"

She smiled back up at him and reached behind her again to pull a light cardigan over herself, hiding her T-shirt and her bruises. The cardigan could do nothing for the scrapes down her legs, and her cutoff shorts weren't helping.

"Yeah, I'm okay," she stood from the chair and did a small twirl as if to prove it. He winced down at the small red lines on her legs, contrasted terribly against her pale, freckled skin, and just shrugged back at her.

"You look great," he said.

"Thanks."

Will shuffled around behind them, carrying a large stack of books and placing one after another on the shelves.

"Will works here, now," Rose smiled at Mike and then turned around to collect her things.  
"Oh," was all he said. Then, "When did that happen?"  
Will let out a little laugh and said, "Just in time to watch Rose nearly throw herself into traffic yesterday."  
"I'll wear the helmet!" She cried, turning around. Playfully she threw it at him and he caught it, then placed it on his head and knocked on the plastic of it.

"Sturdy."

Rose rolled her eyes and huffed off to find Nate to tell him goodnight.

Mike and Will stood awkwardly in the small entrance of the bookstore and then Will sheepishly removed the helmet from his head.

Mike cleared his throat. "So, did you guys skip story night last night, then?"

"Oh, no," Will walked to the armchair and gently placed the helmet on the cushion. "She wouldn't let us - well, Nate claimed that we were all big boys and girls and that we could make it to the Pub," then he looked around to make sure Nate wasn't standing there and finished with, "to tell the story of Rose falling off her bike, of course."

Mike chuckled. "He gets carried away with that club, sometimes."

"Rose agreed with him, so really it's both their fault, but I suggested she go home."

"She looks good, though."  
"She is."

Another awkward silence.

Even though the two of them had nearly died together just last Tuesday, they knew very little about one another. Then Mike smiled.

"You look good, too," and Mike pointed at Will's nose. The bruise was long gone, but it still looked slightly crooked now.

"Oh, yeah," he absentmindedly scratched at it.

"Alright!" Came Nate's cheerful voice from the back as he and Rose exited, patting Quill the cat before leaving him behind to sun on the checkout counter. "Let's close this place up, I'm starving."

"Same," Rose said.

"Me, too." Mike and Will said together, and suddenly they were all standing outside, "starving".

Rose cleared her throat and then offered up a suggestion for food, which Nate flatly refused, saying it was too "young" for him, there. She placed her hands on her hips.

"What does that even _mean?_ "

They quarreled like that for a while until it was decided they would eat at a small 24-hour diner on 4th, only two streets up the hill, and Rose offered for Mike and Will to, of course, join them.

Mike jumped at the chance. "Yes, definitely," but Will's face fell and he shook his head.

"I can't, I have to go to the hospital."

Immediately they all turned to him, shocked. Rose even scanned him with her eyes and he felt himself flush a little bit.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"No, yeah, I'm fine!" He raised his hands up in front of him in mock-surrender and the three of them sighed in relief. "Penny, er - my little sister is there, so I visit as much as I can..."

Then the three of them each donned the same expression he'd been seeing for nearly three years since Penny had been diagnosed.

"Guys, come on, it's fine. I'll see you tomorrow, Nate."

"Seeya, Will," Nate frowned and they all watched him head for the bus stop down the hill.

"Did you-?" Rose started.

"Nope," Nate finished.

They turned to Mike.  
"Uh, not a clue."

* * *

When dinner was over, Mike offered once again to walk Rose home. He was practically glowing, being near her. She smiled and the two of them both walked their bikes up the hill toward 29th street.

Once they'd reached her apartment, Rose hesitated on the stoop.

"Thanks again, Mike."

"Seriously, I wouldn't want you to walk alone."  
"Oh, come on," she grinned mischievously at him. "We're in Jump City - I'm _perfectly_ safe."

"Riiiiight."

They laughed together and she smiled up at him. He was taller than her, brown-haired, blue eyed. He looked so… safe.

Just as she was about to say something more, Mike's phone went off.

"Oh, uh… I have to get this."

"Sure."

Mike's father's voice was audible without speakerphone, and Mike cleared his throat and smiled at Rose.

"I'll see you Friday, okay?"

"Oh, you sure?"  
"...yeah."

She almost reached out to him, to tell him to stay and hang out a little longer, but he was already turning his face away and continued the walk up the hill toward Harrowing road and home.

Rose watched him go, this time forlorn, and hiked the bike up the stairs and closed the door behind her.


	6. Chapter 6

Once, when Rose was little, she remembered having a classmate who'd left early in the school year because she was sick.

Her name was Brittany Minkins, and she'd been diagnosed with cancer.

Rose remembered Brittany like no one else. Her hair was golden, her eyes a chestnut brown color that shined in the sunlight. Her laugh was infectious, and she came up with the best games.

Once, in second grade, Brittany asked if Rose would teach her how to do some of the math that they'd learned while she'd been away the week before.

Rose had asked her "were you not feeling good?"

And Brittany had said, "Yeah... I'm sick."

"Your dad should take you home," Rose had said.

"It's okay," Brittany had said. "Will you show me the math problems?"

And like that they had spent the afternoon, hiding away in the back of class, quietly going over the work that Brittany had missed.

Rose felt so much pride thinking about how much she'd helped Brittany, but later that month, Brittany left school for good.

In the fourth grade they learned that Brittany had beaten her cancer, that she would be alright, but that it would take a long time for her to catch back up in school. To Rose, who thought that schoolwork was the most important thing in the world, had wondered why anyone cared that Brittany wouldn't know how to do her times-tables.

Brittany was alive, and that's all that mattered.

These memories washed over Rose as she curled up in the large chair by the bookstore window that Wednesday morning. She watched Will as he swept and wiped down the counter. She watched him prep the money in the register for opening, eat a cold grilled cheese with tomato at lunchtime and wince at the taste. She watched him as he went along each day as if he should care about everything other than his sister, and it made her sad.

"Will?"

He glanced up from the book he was reading, "The Shape of Water", and his dark eyebrows raised up over deep blue-green eyes.

"Yeah?"

"How are you doing?"

At first Rose worried that he would take the question too personally and shut down or evade the question. Instead, he did not understand her meaning.

"I'm alright. Job hunt is slow going, but this isn't the worst place to kill time."

"What do you mean?"

Will gestured around the bookstore. "You know, Nate's? It's a nice place to work while I find the dream job, and I know he pays me more than he needs to.

Rose smiled. "Well, he hasn't had an employee in a long time."

"How long?"

"I'm not sure, he didn't hire anyone the whole time I've been coming here... almost two years now. I only started reading for kids this summer, but he's always managed alone."

"I'm not surprised. Not too much goes into it, when you don't count all the finances, the cleaning, the inventory and the clerical stuff. Otherwise it's just like living quietly in a bookstore."

Rose settled back into her chair and decided to forget about digging deeper into the subject of Will's sister.

"I'd love to live in this bookstore."

"I don't know about that," Will joked, his eyes trailing back to the pages of his book. "Sometimes it has a weird smell."

"I hope yer not talking about me, William," Nate snapped from behind one of the shelves. Will jumped a little and nearly knocked over his small cup of coffee, bought from the diner he used to work at. On the cup it read "Vinny's" for Vinny's Diner and Deli. It was Styrofoam and therefore not structurally sound.

Will hissed as a few drops of hot coffee trailed over his fingers as he saved "The Shape of Water" from being permanently stained by the drink.

"Not talking about you, Nate," Will reassured him.

Nate chuckled. "Good."

Rose smiled from her place curled up in the large armchair. "I still think this place would be the best to live in."

"Why, everything alright with your apartment?" Nate accused.

"Yes," she said. "It's just... you know."

The two men stared at her and waited.

"Lonely."

As if on cue, from the shelves above her came the meow of Quill, the russet, red cat. His tail trailed down just near the top of her head and she reached up gratefully and scratched under his chin.

"Well, you just keep visiting us and Quill here," Nate said. "You'll never be lonely again." And he disappeared behind the shelves.

"That's true," Rose said as Quill purred above her. "Sometimes I feel like I'll never be lonely… but then sometimes I go home and it's like…"

Will propped his elbows on the counter and rested his head on one hand, listening to her.

"It's like… I have two mugs. And four forks… and the TV is always on to make me feel like I'm not all alone. Which is ridiculous because Buyer's Energy Company is killing me with bills. I almost adopted a cat once, but then I worried I wouldn't be there enough to keep it happy. I don't know," her facial expression grew sad. "I guess I'm just complaining."

"No, don't," Will said. "It's okay to feel that way. I'm alone in my apartment, too."

"What about—" but Rose tried to catch herself in time. Will sighed.

"My sister stays at the hospital. She's always there."

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to make you talk about her," Rose said.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "Seriously. It's only weird if you make it weird."

They sat there in silence for a moment.

"Okay, then." Rose nodded. "I'll try not to make it weird."

Her expression was dead-serious and so Will couldn't help but laugh out loud. Rose looked affronted.

"Sorry," he said. "Sorry, but that was just so sweet and cute."

He kept laughing, but Rose's ears started to burn.

 _Cute?_

At the same time, a customer walked in, and Will carefully closed his book on the bookmark and went to greet them. Rose stayed rooted in her seat. Her hand went still on Quill's chin and so the cat was pushing against her and purring even more insistently to try and get her to continue.

 _Sweet and cute?_

Unable to stand the warmth on her cheeks, she reached behind the armchair and pulled out her backpack. She reached inside for one of her summer reading assignments from her graduate course and set to work on it. After Will was done helping the customer, she felt Will glance in her direction, but she refused to look up. Their conversation ended quickly after that.

* * *

When it was almost five in the evening, just around closing time, Rose truly was immersed in the book. At first it had been a defense against lending more to the conversation, but now she was so immersed that she barely heard Nate walk in front of her to the storefront door, flip the sign from "Open" to "Closed" and then cough in her direction.

"Ahem."

Nothing.

"A-ahem!"

Rose finally glanced up, startled. "What?"

"Closin' time, little girl."

"Already?"

Rose glanced upward at the clock on the wall.

"Yes, already," Nate said. "Gotta scoot. We've got cleanup and inventory to do."

"Oh," Rose said and packed away her things. Then she stood with the backpack on her shoulder and stole a glance at Will who was watching her carefully.

They both knew at that moment that her face was flushed red.

"Okay, I'll get out of your hair," she said, and quickly made her way out of the shop.

"Coming back tomorrow?" Nate called after her, but she merely waved behind her and unlocked the borrowed bike from the rack.

She started to walk away from the shop, the bike spokes making a click, click, click noise as she went. She glanced behind her at the park at the bottom of the hill and saw that the sunset on this gorgeous day was glistening along the park benches and ponds. She paused for a moment, thought about going home to her quiet apartment, and turned around.

Maybe she was running the risk of bumping into Will once he was done at the shop, but she decided this might be the best thing for her right now. After all, she hadn't gotten to finish her chapter in "To Kill a Mockingbird", and if she didn't get started on her twenty-page report on how to re-vamp her teaching strategies for her professor come September, she'd be screwed.

So, Rose turned around and headed for the park.

Jump City park was much bigger than she'd originally expected when she had first moved here. Rose was from a small farming town in Minnesota and so she hadn't been prepared to see fields and groves of trees when she moved here for school.

There were three duck ponds, a large fountain square for dancing and an amphitheater for concerts and festivals. There were several biking and running trails and even horses and carriages that pulled tourists around when the weather was nice. There were open fields for throwing frisbees or flying kites and having picnics. There were metal grills and picnic tables, and even once there was a traveling circus. In the spring, Rose had been invited to a concert in the park, but remembered declining for some reason. Lucky for her, there had been an attack on the park by a villain with electrical powers who'd blacked out the whole city that night. Apparently, there had been few injuries, but enough to make Rose grateful she'd stayed home.

Still, she wondered what her life would be like if she got out more, saw more things.

Rose clicked her bike over to a large oak tree with ample shade for the late afternoon sun and lay down her sweatshirt jacket on the grass. She took her backpack off again and sat down on the jacket. Then she pulled out "To Kill a Mockingbird" and set to work on the last few pages of her chapter.

By the time seven in the evening had rolled around, Rose had nearly completed the whole book.

Her parents had always told her that time could easily get away from her while she read, and when she looked up from her book after a child nearly hit her leg with a frisbee, she knew they were right.

"Sorry, lady!" the little boy in a ballcap called out. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!"

Rose smiled and gently threw the frisbee back, which floated gently over to the boy who caught it and smiled.

"No worries!" Rose called back.

"What are you reading?" the boy asked, but his father collected him quickly.

"Come on, Jack," the father said. "It's already seven, we have to go home for dinner."

"Oh, okay," Jack frowned. "Bye!"

Jack waved wildly at her, and his father awkwardly followed his son's example as they walked away. She waved back at them and stretched her back before glancing around the park.

 _Seven already?_ She thought. _Better get going_.

Part of her was almost disappointed that Will hadn't bumped into her, but she knew that was ridiculous. Not only did he live up the hill like Mike, he was probably off to see his little sister. Rose was being ridiculous.

 _Still…_ she thought to herself. _Did he really say I was cute?_

Rose frowned and shook her head. She pulled the sweatshirt jacket over her shoulders and recollected her things. There would be time for thoughts like that when she could think clearly, like when she'd eaten something.

When she was sitting at home alone with nothing else to do.

"Pretty pathetic," she said to herself. "Nothing to do and pining over the wrong guy."

As she packed away the final highlighters and sticky notes into her backpack, she accidentally bumped the bike over, and it fell to the ground with a loud crash.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, for the love of…"

As she bent over to pick up the bike, she felt a cold chill behind her, as if the wind had suddenly picked up significantly. Just as she was turning around to see what it was, someone else in the park screamed.

Rose's head whipped toward the hill and the street where she was headed. The little boy Jack and his dad were sprinting at top speed, hand in hand, out of the park. She turned slowly around toward the rest of the park, which was now growing dark in the waning light.

Large trees cast shadows over her, and before she knew it, she was seeing a huge dust cloud headed toward her at top speed.

"What-?"

But it wasn't a dust cloud, she realized. It was a cloud of moths.

Giant moths.

Giant, angry, wild and hungry killer moths.

Rose mounted the bike immediately, her jean shorts tearing a little on her left thigh as they caught on a protruding screw on the bike. It cut her leg a little, too through her pants. She bit down on her lip and took off down the bike path and toward the bookstore.

The bookstore that was locked.

"Please, oh please, oh please-!" she screamed as she hopped the curb on her bike. Nearly thirty moths flew over her head and she jumped from the bike and ran up to the storefront of the bookstore. She wrenched on the door and thought she would nearly rip it from its hinges, but it didn't budge. The windows were dark, and no one but Quill the cat was left in the bookstore.

She yanked and pounded on the door, but the heavy plexiglass and metal doorknob were too much for. Then she whipped around the corner and made a beeline for Mulligan's pub. All around her and behind her were the sounds of people screaming, of metal screeching. She glanced up and saw that the moths were snapping through telephone wires and metal lampposts that tumbled down into the street, disrupting taxi cabs and commuters on their way home from work. A woman shrieked to Rose's right. She slowed for a fraction of a second to see the woman race down an alleyway and hide inside a metal dumpster, but the moths made short work of that, too. The woman jumped out of the dumpster and went running for her life in the opposite direction.

Rose's tennis shoes slapped the pavement in dull, muffled sounds that paled beneath the screams of Jump City citizens.

"Come on!" she screamed as she ran, urging herself to run faster. "Come on! GO!"

"Titans, GO!" came a cry from her left.

As if the ground had fell out from beneath her, Rose felt so stunned that she might collapse from shock.

On her left, running just on the other side of the street on the park grass in the form of a green stag, was Beast Boy, one of the Teen Titans. The stag snorted and charged past her, racing down the street and disappearing behind a grove of trees. Following him was a blue and white car that raced quickly down the street, and from it came blue laser shots that knocked ten moths at a time out of the sky and brought them back down to the earth.

Rose nearly missed Mulligan's pub when Babs, the owner, shouted her name and beckoned her inside.

"Rose!"

Rose dove for the door and rushed inside, slamming it behind her as Babs pulled her further into the pub.

"Damn, that was close!" Babs cried. She crossed her arms over her chest and said, "What were you doing out in that?"

"I was-I was at the park!" Rose panted. Then she slid down onto the floor and caught her breath. "I was just-just sitting there and suddenly…"

Babs nodded. "I know, the sky grew dark and we thought it was a freak storm, I boarded up the door as soon as possible, unless someone needed to get in, and then I saw you running."

"Thank you," Rose said. "Thank you…"

She lolled her head back against the wall of the pub as the sounds of a frantic hailstorm battered against the windows of Mulligan's. Babs patted Rose's hair and left her to go back behind the bar. In the pub with her were several young men and women sitting on bar stools and around tables. There was a pair of older men at the bar with white hair looking bored – longtime Jump City citizens. Then there was a man and his college-aged daughter sharing a plate of food, which had been abandoned as soon as the storm of moths had started. It seemed like everything, but for the conversation between the two older gentlemen, had stopped and gone silent.

"I saw Beast Boy," Rose said finally into the quiet bar.

Babs looked up from her place behind the bar in shock. "You what?"

"Beast Boy. I think Cyborg, too. He was outside when I ran in. It was… kind of incredible."

"Kind of?" called a young man from one of the corner booths "That is wild, man."

Rose smiled. "Yeah, it was. I'm surprised you guys didn't see him out the windows."

"To be fair," Babs said, pointing. "There's not much to see."

Rose looked up behind her at the massive swarm just outside the paned glass and nodded.

"Good point."

She rose from her spot and walked over to the bar. She didn't have to flash her driver's license for Babs to pour her a draft of hard cider and set it on a specialty coaster that said "Mulligans". She slid the cider along the bar, propped her elbows on it and said, "How's that handsome boy you always come with."

"Will?"

Babs grinned like a cat. "Oh, you think Will is the handsome one?"

Rose blushed. She'd been caught. "That was dirty."

"I thought you'd say, 'which one', but I guess I was wrong."

"Mike is very attractive," Rose blurted out. Then she blushed some more. "I mean, they're both handsome."

"Well sure," Babs said as Rose sipped her cider. "But your mind goes to Will first. I get it, he's got that look about him. Tall, dark and handsome. Trust me honey, we've all been there."

"I'm not interested in Will," Rose insisted. "They're both handsome and they're both very nice, but don't ready anything more into it."

Babs shrugged. "You love books, right?"

"Yes?"

"Good, because you're easy to read like one."

Rose frowned at her but then smiled good-naturedly. "Don't you have other things to do than gossip?"

"I'm a bartender, sweetheart. Gossip is all I do."

"I guess I'm not surprised."

"What is it you do, again? School teaching, right?"

"Soon," Rose said. She finished the cider and Babs poured her a second. "I'm going for my master's degree right now, but during the summer I've been reading at Nate's to the kids."

"What about your job?"

Rose blushed a little. "My, uh, parents said I shouldn't be working while I'm doing schooling. They don't think I need to have a summer job so they…send me money."

Babs gave her a sympathetic look. "There's no need to be embarrassed about that, girlie. Everyone's a little different. Some of us are blessed with parents who worked hard for what they have."

Rose played with her hair nervously. "Still… I think about Mike and Will who have to work so hard for themselves and I feel like a phony."

"Don't," Babs said. "Just don't take it for granted."

Rose smiled at her. "Okay."

The minutes ticked along, and someone played a song on the jukebox. Rose loosened up on her second drink but declined a third.

"I'd appreciate it," Rose said in a hushed tone after the last drop was drained from the glass. "If you would keep all this to yourself. Nate's got a mouth the size of the Louisiana Purchase."

"About which part?" Babs wiggled her eyebrows.

"All of it," Rose said firmly and smiled.

They sat like that for nearly an hour before the moths dissipated. Warning sirens from the Jump City Watch Service finally died down, and once the coast seemed clear, Babs walked over to the double doors of Mulligan's pub and unlocked them. She ducked her head out, looked left, then right, and then said, "All clear, gang."

Everyone but the two older men stood up at once and filed quickly out of the bar.

"Thanks for the refuge," Rose said. "I'll see you soon for story night, right?"

"Of course," Babs said. "Always here for story night. You've finally got one to tell."

"It was only for a second. I think that there isn't much left to say about it."

"Ruminate on it," Babs advised. "Stories age well overnight."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Well I'm back! If you couldn't tell after that last chapter post. Chapter 6 wasn't my favorite, but I felt as though I needed to progress the plot a little bit before jumping back into the parts of this plot that I actually like. So I hope you enjoyed it, but this chapter is much better in my opinion.**

 **Please review and share, and let me know what you think!**

 **-Song**

* * *

"Okay," Penny said. "In _Magic the Gathering_ you are a Planeswalker. You gotta beat my monsters with your own monsters, or sometimes magic spells or traps. Also—"

"Penny?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm lost."

Will and Penny were sitting across from each other at a small table in the Jump City Hospital cafeteria. Spread out before them were gaming mats with fantasy characters and backgrounds and covering those were what felt like a hundred cards.

"See?" Penny said. "I told you we needed all weekend for you to learn this. It's super complicated, and we only just started!"

Will ran a nervous hand through his hair. "Sorry, Penny girl. I got caught up this weekend."

She rolled her eyes at him and reshuffled the cards. "It's okay, we can try to get through a round but then I have DnD with some friends in an hour, okay?"

"Okay," Will smiled.

He watched her re-setup the game, smiling to himself as she scolded him for each question that he had. She was thirteen this year. Her chestnut-colored hair was cropped short, close to her head. She had a pair of silver studs in her earlobes. On her left wrist lay a friendship bracelet from a girl named Jenny down the hall who made it for her, next to the hospital wrist tag. She also wore the necklace their mom gave her before she died – a four-leaf clover made of gold that complimented her blue-green eyes.

It was for good luck.

"Okay, now you play a card," Penny commanded.

"Uh, what?"

"William!" She snapped. "You promised you'd pay attention!"

"I am!" He defended himself, but he knew it was useless. "I'm sorry it's just super complicated and I'm under a lot of pressure here."

"You are so easily distracted," she said, huffing from her side of the table. "Should I just clean the whole thing up?"

"No, don't!"

Will picked up his cards and rapidly read through the instructions. It was all gibberish.

"How did you even get into these games?"

"What? Like _Magic_ and _Dungeons and Dragons_?"

"Well, yeah."

"All my friends around here play it. I'm a fifth level mage half-elf," she said. "You can't survive in the East Wing without knowing how to play _Magic_ or _Munchkin_."

"Munchkin?"

"Ugh, Will we don't have the time."

Will smiled at her again. "I'm sorry your big brother is such a disappointment."

"It's okay," she smiled. "I love you anyway."

"You _do_?"

"Don't make me say it again, dummy."

Will laughed a little to himself and tried to learn _Magic_.

After their hour was almost up together, Penny looked up from the game and sighed.

"You're hopeless. Promise you'll do some research and we'll pick this back up tomorrow? I have to get to my DnD session."

"You're really boosting my confidence," said Will sarcastically. "Maybe my friends can help me. I'll ask if they know how to play it."

"What friends?"

She wasn't teasing him this time. Will remembered now that he hadn't mentioned Mike or Rose since he'd met them two weeks ago. In fact, the two of them were all that seemed to occupy his thoughts, other than Nate and his new job. Rose with her smile, her laugh and her constant presence in the bookstore. How kind she'd been about Penny, careful of his emotions. Then he thought about Mike, and how he wished he were more like him – ambitious, hard-working and focused on his goals.

Mike was attractive, and in love with Rose.

"I met a guy named Mike and a girl named Rose."

"The same day you broke your face?" Penny joked, gesturing to the scarring on Will's nose.

"Sort of. That's when I met Mike, at least." He neglected to tell her about meeting one of the Teen Titans, for fear of making her feel cooped up and left out.

"Ooo, Mike? Is he cute?"

Will laughed. "Yeah, he is."

"Ugh, I'm so jealous. You always make friends with hot guys."

"What can I say? Hot guys hang out with each other."

Penny gave him a look. "You do _not_ qualify as 'hot' big brother, sorry."

"Ouch!" Will's eyes widened. "What did I do to you?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying you could stand to update your fashion sense."

Will was affronted. "Well, I can see I'm only going to get bullied today."

He stood up from the table and pretended to leave.

"No, wait! I'm sorry, okay?"

Will turned around and crossed his arms, his back facing her. "No, you're not."

"No, come on, I am. I was just kidding."

Will smiled and turned back around. "Yeah?"

" _Yes_."

"Okay," he said and sat back down.

"What is with you today?"

Will hesitated and she saw it.

"Wait, what is it?" Penny asked more quietly.

Will bit his lip a little and then cleared his throat. "Doctor Bennett told me that… you're not leaving next week."

Penny paled. Will didn't think she could get paler than she already was, after all she'd been through.

"What do you mean?"

Will started to absently clean up the cards for her.

"Your bloodwork came back and… she said it didn't look as good as they'd hoped."

She looked at him for a long time. Then she calmly said, "You mean I'm dying?"

He looked up at her with shock.

"No! No, Penny girl, no…" He set the cards down and took her hands. "No, you are _not_ dying. I swear that that is not happening."

He saw her eyes getting wet and he hurried on with his explanation.

"Your bloodwork showed that there might be… something in you that they want to keep an eye on. They want you close by."

"But I've been close by…" she said. "For a long time…"

"I know, Penny girl…"

"How much longer?"

"They aren't sure yet."

They sat there quietly, and he watched her fight the tears of disappointment and anger that were growing behind her long lashes. Will felt as though his heart was breaking. He remembered how angry he'd been at the doctor for giving Penny false hope. How he'd snarled and snapped while they tried to explain it to him. How he eventually collapsed into a chair in the hallway and sobbed, just hours ago, and Doctor Bennett held him even though she didn't have to.

Then Penny sniffed a little and let go of his hands.

"It's okay," she said finally. "I mean, I'll be able to play another week of DnD. And Jenny said that Robin from the Titans is visiting this part of the hospital next weekend and… well you know. It's fine."

Will swallowed thickly.

"I'm so, so proud of my strong little sister," he said. "God, you're so cool."

She cleared her throat and then smiled a little. "I know."

"I know you know."

The two of them sat there a little longer, carefully packing up their game and putting it away where it belonged.

"Want me to walk you to DnD?"

"No, I've got it. Besides, that'd be so embarrassing."

Will smiled. "You gonna be okay tonight?"

"I mean, it's pudding night on Thursdays," Penny said. "But… maybe can you sleep over?"

Will bent down to hug her.

"Yeah, of course."

"Okay… thanks."

"No need to thank me," Will said, running a hand over her shorn hair and then tapping her nose. He felt like crying again, but he said, "It's what I'm here for."

They said goodbye, and then Penny ordered him to leave before her friends saw him.

"I'll be back tonight," he said.

"I'll be here…" she said.

 _I know_. He thought as she walked away from him, carrying her heavy collection of games as she went. _I know you will…_

Will had the day off from _Ol' Corner Books_ today. One mention of going to see Penny and Nate had flatly refused to let Will work at all. He was going to talk the half-day but instead he found himself wandering around the hospital grounds, aimless.

It would be a few hours, Penny had said, before she'd be back in her room for the night. He marveled at how popular his little sister was, and all the social engagements she always seemed to have planned each day. Each week. Each month.

Each year.

How long had it been? _Too long_ , Will thought to himself. He walked with his hands in his pockets and started down the street.

Almost three years now. One thing after another.

Sometimes he would pick books from the shelf in Nate's bookstore and see his life laid out before him as a YA tragedy. Missing dad, dead mom, sister with cancer. It was a fantasy to some people. They would buy the books and rave about how real it was, how the characters jumped off the page, and he would smile and say "I'm glad you liked it, please come again!". But the reality was that it _was_ his reality, and he spent every day trying to remember that the pulse in his veins was the only thing keeping he and Penny alive right now.

That he would have to keep doing it, every day, until things turned around.

But he wasn't down on himself. Not really. He still felt the wind on his face, the sun on his skin. He still felt his heart flutter when Rose smiled at him, though he knew it was silly of him. He liked being silly though, he liked living his life one day at a time. Just like other people. He liked his cups of cheap coffee and the moments that slipped away when he read good books at the cashier's counter.

Will was still a happy guy.

He was just so tired sometimes.

 _Speaking of coffee,_ Will thought to himself as he approached _Vinny's Diner and Deli_ for his first cup of coffee for the day. He walked through the glass door and the bell above it chimed, announcing his presence.

At first it bothered him that he'd worked here, and that he'd suddenly quit out of the blue, but would still order coffee at the counter and eat his eggs and read the news channel subtitles on the corner television on his off days. But Ronnie told him not to worry about it, and so he didn't.

As the bell chimed above him, he saw Ronnie's head turn toward the sound to greet the new customer. When she saw it was him she grinned.

"Willy!"

Will cringed. "Please, _please_ stop calling me that."

"Never," she smiled. Ronnie was middle-aged and had been working at this location for nearly twenty years. First it had been a soda-pop shop, then a grill, and now a breakfast and lunch diner with cheap coffee and grouchy patrons. She tapped her long, red nails on the counter and always wore too much eyeliner, but he liked her all the same.

"C'mon, in. How you feeling? I see that nose has scarred up quite a bit."

Will scratched at the bridge of his nose absently. "Better, thanks. Got coffee?"

"Got Coffee!?" She bellowed. "Course we got coffee, silly Willy."

He cringed again. "I hate that so much."

"I know you do, sugar."

Ronnie cackled and disappeared behind the door that led to the kitchens in the back. He could see her brunette beehive hairdo flash by the window as she left to get him a fresh pot.

Then he sighed heavily.

 _Why did I come here?_ He thought. Making small talk with Ronnie all morning and afternoon while he waited to pack a bag and head back to the hospital wouldn't relax him. He doubted it would even distract him for long. He bounced his leg on the barstool rungs beneath him and felt as though his skin were crawling.

 _How much longer?_ She'd asked him. He wished he knew.

Then he felt a gentle tap on his right shoulder.

Will turned, surprised, expecting to see an old coworker. Then he saw the shining face of Rose, and she smiled at him.

"Wow, I can't seem to get away from you," she said.

"No kidding," he said. She was wearing a blue, cotton t-shirt with white shorts and a sweatshirt jacket. Her hair was up in a curly, messy bun and she looked…just… "Er-what are you doing here?"

"Looking for a late breakfast. You?"

"Late coffee."

"Perfect. Can I join?"

He gestured to the barstool next to him. "Please."

She hopped up on the faux red leather and spun the stool to face him. Her feet rested on the barstool rungs below her and she propped one arm on the counter.

"Not working today?"

"No," Will said. He knew what would come next would turn the conversation in an awkward direction, but she promised not to make it weird. "I went to see Penny today, so Nate gave me today off."

Without missing a beat, Rose simply said, "How is she?"

Will felt the lump in his throat but swallowed it down.

"She's really good. She's playing DnD."

"Oh, I _love_ DnD. Does she play it often?"

"Every week."

"She must like it."

"Loves it," said Will.

Then Ronnie appeared again, hoisting a hot pot of coffee over her head and screaming, "Order up! One cup o' Joe for the man who left us all in the dust, Willy Wonka over here!"

And she poured him a cup with a bright, flashing smile and a wink.

"Ronnie," Will snapped. "I'll never, ever come back here now, you hear me?"

"Lies and slander," Ronnie said cackling again. "You come for the coffee, the cake and apparently the girls. What's your name, sugar?"

Rose blushed. "Rose, ma'am."

"Oh, you are a rose, aren't you? All pinks and reds, you are."

Will put his face in his hands and let the warm steam of the coffee wash over him.

"Er-I suppose?" Rose said.

"Suppose nothing, sugar. I bet all the boys wanna pluck you out of the garden—"

" _Thank you,_ Ronnie." Will said, raising his head up. "For the love of God—"

"I'm just _teasing,_ " Ronnie laughed. "You're so sensitive, goodness gracious."

And with that, Ronnie and her beehive hairdo disappeared again to help other customers.

 _Just kill me,_ Will thought to himself as Rose attempted to pull herself together.

"She seems nice," Rose finally said.

"Yeah, a real gem."

Then they both looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry," Will smiled as Rose wiped her eyes, still giggling. "That was inappropriate."

"It's alright," Rose said. "It happens. It's certainly not the worst thing I've heard said about me since moving to the city."

"Oh," Will frowned a little. "That's terrible."

She rested her hands on the counter. "It happens, you know? Cat calls, slurs, people knocking you out of the way on the subway."

Will gave her a sympathetic look.

"Still, don't listen to people. People are crazy."

"Not all people, and not all crazy is a bad sort of crazy," Rose reminded him. "Nate's assuredly crazy."

Will laughed again.

"Oh, right! What an excellent point, I stand corrected."

"How is the bookstore?"

"Since yesterday? It's doing well," he smiled. Then he cleared his throat.

"You ran out of there yesterday..."

Rose was about to assure him that it wasn't meant to seem impolite, but Ronnie reappeared with coffee.

"Can't believe you'd think we didn't have coffee," Ronnie 'tsked' at Will who rolled his eyes.

"More properly this time," Will advised the woman, "Ronnie, this is Rose. She's a friend of mine."

"I should hope so," Ronnie said, sticking out her long-nailed hand for Rose to shake. "How are you, darlin?"

"I'm great, thank you," Rose smiled. It lit up the whole diner, Will thought.

"You sure are," Ronnie winked. "So, what're you doing hanging out with this guy?"

"We both work at the same place now," Will said quickly.

"Oh, coworkers. You the one who stole him away from us?"

Rose blushed. "No, not at all."

"I quit remember?"

"With nowhere to go," Ronnie smiled at Will. "Lucky boy, for that handsome old bookkeeper to land you that job right away."

Will's ears burned red.

"Very lucky..." he muttered and sipped his coffee.

"I read to the kids at Ol' Corner Books," Rose interjected, sensing Will's discomfort.

"Wow, you get paid for that?" Ronnie asked.

Rose cleared her throat, "No, I volunteer. It's for my master's program."

"That's nice of ya," Ronnie said, resting her elbows on the counter. "You must be new to the city. Not many folks around here volunteer for nothin'. They expect the Titans to do good for 'em. Shameful."

Once again, Rose felt the frustration of being 'new', but she ignored the comment.

"Do you volunteer?" Rose asked.

Ronnie winked. "When I've got the time."

"Ronnie!" a gruff male voice yelled from behind the kitchen service window. Ronnie grinned and turned around.

"Yeah, Hank?"

"Quit talking to the kids and get back to work!"

"I am workin', you old bastard!"

It went back and forth like that for a while, and Rose's eyes widened in surprise, but Will tried not to laugh again. No other regular patrons in the diner seemed perturbed, and after a while, Will said quietly under his breath, "They're married. They're not really mad at each other, they just like to cause a scene."

"Cause a scene?" Rose gasped. "More like start a war."

But the two diner employees, one a veteran waitress and the other a line cook with a beard-net, gave one another a small kiss through the order window.

"Now you get back to work, Hank." Ronnie flashed him a winning smile. He blushed and went back to the grill.

Ronnie left them finally to serve other customers, so Will turned to Rose.

"Well, now that that's over, are you hungry?"


End file.
